


Homecoming

by JoAsakura



Series: Sunbreaker: The Book of Mouse [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-07-04 19:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15847614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoAsakura/pseuds/JoAsakura
Summary: In the days after the Red War, Mouse- an awoken Guardian- tries to come to terms with the echoes of his first life. Echoes that lead him back to the Reef.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little thing I've been thinking of since I started playing D2. Figured I should finish it before Forsaken drops.
> 
> Note 2: I expect everything I think about the Reef is completely and utterly wrong. ^_^>

250 miles above the Earth, and he could still see the glint of the living Traveler, Mouse thought as he floated, tethered to his ship.

But even if he closed his eyes to it, he could feel the energy humming in his flesh, and wondered if other Guardians felt the Light like that. They weren't encouraged to talk about it, after all.

The Light blotted everything out if he let it, fear and hope and the memories clinging to the old bones beneath his alien skin.

“Can we go back inside now?” Stel muttered in his ear. “All we need is some Fallen skiff to come by and blow us up. I don’t _want_ to get blown up just because you felt the need for a spacewalk." The ghost circled him, blue light winking in annoyance

Sunlight played off the red curves of his armour as Mouse pulled himself around to look his ghost in the eye. “Stel. I’ve been thinking.”

“Oh, that’s never good.” Stel's shell slid forward in the approximation of a scowl. "The last time you said that, we ended up being chased across half of Io by those Taken. I was finding twigs in my shell for a week."

Mouse snorted and gave himself the smallest nudge of power to drift towards the ship. He could hear the solar winds against his suit, ringing like a wet finger on a wineglass. “Meeting Ana and seeing her reclaim who she was... it makes me… I want to go _home_ , Stel.”

“You've been having dreams about the Reef again.” Stel glided beside him. "But, the commander said..."

“Commander Zavala can respectfully bite my purple ass.” Mouse’s boots clamped on the hull and he looked down at the Earth. “And its just a few strong echoes, Stel. Like I can almost reach out and touch them.”

Stel flitted around him. “Paracausal forces. Sometimes, because of the Light, parts of us exist in different times or places and we catch glimpses of it," he nodded. "But before you interrupt me again, Commander Zavala has specifically put a moratorium on Awoken Titans- and might I add probably specifically YOU-  from going to the Reef on anything except official vanguard business."

“Then we'd best think of official business.” Mouse grinned under his helmet. “Oh, I've got it. But it means going back to Mercury.”

“I hate this idea already," Stel sighed heavily as they slipped back into the ship.


	2. Chapter 2

*   
  
Going to talk to Commander Zavala was always vaguely nerve-wracking, Mouse thought as he wound his way through the midday crowds in the Tower Plaza. The air was thick with the scent of spicy broth and the noise of Guardians and civilians alike bartering in the market. Normally he enjoyed all of it. Today, his nerves wouldn't let him have the pleasure.   
  
Zavala’s actual office was still a giant pile of rubble, but the pleasant weather had meant the commander had taken up a near-permanent perch on a section of walkway overlooking the city. Harried aides and his poor, beleaguered ghost did their best to keep him constantly fed with news. Mouse didn't envy them.   
  
He could still remember the night he first came to the tower. Guardians had no good sense of time - Immortal Undeath did that to a consciousness – but the memory of meeting the commander still burned fresh in his mind. Stabbing cold rain against his new skin, and no words that would come to his mouth.  And Zavala was the only other Awoken he'd ever seen. 

Mouse had thought he was a monster. The mess had taken weeks to clean up, and had set the tone for their relationship. And when he'd left with Ouros years later, it hadn't made things any better. 

It certainly didn't make thoughts of this conversation sit any easier in his gut.

Zavala glanced over, for a barely a moment, as Mouse approached. The commander’s brow lifted in reproach as he noted the titan was out of his armour. “Guardian.” He simply said.   
  
“Commander, I’m going to be removing myself to Mercury for the foreseeable future.” Mouse squared his shoulders, meeting the commander’s pale glowing gaze with his own green. “I realize, someone needs to tend the Forge.”   
  
“I've been told you aren't overfond of Mercury,” Zavala turned away from him to look out over the city. “A bit of a fuss with Vance?”   
  
“Vance and my issues with him aside... I’m one of the last ordained Sunbreakers. I have a duty to the Forge that you pulled me away from.” Mouse lifted his chin. He was bad at lying, but this regret was real. “If I’d been there when the Red Legion attacked…”   
  
“You’d be dead, like your Magistrate and most of your order.” Zavala finished dryly. “May I remind you, your duty as a guardian is to the city, and its people.”   
  
“Then I suppose I’ll be in dereliction of that for a while. Thank you for understanding.” Mouse turned on his heel, pausing when Zavala called after him.    
  
“Is someone going to take care of your plants?” The commander asked without a change in expression. “While you’re on _Mercury_?” There was the faintest emphasis on the last word, a challenge.   
  
Mouse looked him back, square. “I’ve got that handled… sir.” he said, and strode away before his nerve broke.

  
  
**

 

In the cool confines of the hangar, Stel made a wheezing sound, his shell breaking apart in the ghost equivalent of a flail. “I can’t believe you  _ lied _ to Commander Zavala! Oh, he’s going to be so mad. Oh. Oh,  _ light _ .”   
  
Mouse scooped the little ghost out of the air and gave Stel a little smooch on his gleaming shell. “ I didn’t lie, not  _ really _ . We  _ are _ going to Mercury, after all.” He said, sliding into the cockpit and keying the comms. “Wick, are you ready?”   
  
“Halfway to sun, sand and Vex, big guy.” The hunter replied, “Although do I want to know why I’m bringing you a change of MY clothes?”   
  
“I’ll tell you there. See you at the Forge.”   
  
***   
  
Shaxx had taken over sections of the Shrine as a crucible arena, and Mouse could hear the clash all the way to the Forge as he strode down a a darkened corridor. There were so many guardians calling themselves sunbreakers now, as if it was a generic term for their newly acquired solar powers. 

But so few left who had actually stood in front of the Forge and burned away their fear.    
  
The depths of the shrine was so strangely cold, and Mouse whispered an apology to the air as he came down the stairs.   
  
“Oh thank the Traveler you’re here. This place is creepy.” Wick blurted out from his spot on an old stone bench run through with dead Vex circuitry. “I mean, no offence to your super weird flaming hammer religion and all.”   
  
“It’s fine.” Mouse said, tossing Wick an engram. “Here.”   
  
The hunter opened it and immediately frowned as Mouse started to strip, “Mouse. Why is there a fucking set of titan bullshit in here?” The engram unfolded to release a set of red and gold armour, the chest plate flickering with flames. “Hold it. _Wait_ , you want ME to stay here and pretend I’m you. Isn’t that sacreligious or something?”   
  
“Ouros would understand.” Mouse stood there, nude, pale purple skin flickering with a distant opalescence, and carefully gathered up his armour to store it. “She always told me to listen to my heart. It’ll be for a week, at most."

"Do I want to know where you're actually going?" The hunter prodded one of the greaves.

"The Reef." Mouse leaned against a column as somewhere outside Shaxx screamed over the comms.

"T _he You're Forbidden to Go to The Reef_ Reef?" Wick batted his glowing eyes. He might have been Awoken as well, but he was so small and different compared to Mouse, they might have been separate species.

"No, the other Reef," Mouse chucked a rock at the hunter.  "He tells me at every opportunity I’m a guardian first and awoken second. Blar, blar, blar.”   
  
“ _Titans_.” Wick shook his head and threw mouse his own engram, “I can’t believe I’m doing this for you.”   
  
“You  _ owe _ me.” Mouse caught it, pulling out the blue velvet and black leather within.   
  
“I don’t get what’s so special about the Reef anyways.” Wick changed the subject with a sigh, examining a pair of curving armoured pauldrons.   
  
“You’re earthborn, or you were, right?” Mouse tugged on Wick's second-favourite pair of trousers.   
  
“I guess? I think so. I got shot right in the head one time, and I had some super freaky flashbacks before Sinjin brought me back.” Wick said from inside Mouse’s unadjusted helmet. The ghost in question clonked against it and Stel groaned.   
  
“Well, I’m certain I’m from the Reef. I just… I need to see.” Mouse smoothed the jacket over his chest. “Once and for all.”   
  
“Holy light, I am never loaning you my clothes again.” Wick barked suddenly, circling Mouse like a fallen dreg, the helmet bobbling wildly on his head.   
  
“What, it looks that bad?” Mouse looked around, trying to find some reflective surface.   
  
“Bad? Looking at your ass in these pants is like touching the face of the Traveler.” Wick said, dramatically slapping Mouse’s rear. “If people think you’re me, and then they actually  _ meet _ me, there’s no way I can live up to the booty.”   
  
“A week,” Mouse swatted him away. “And for light’s sake, do  _ not _ talk to Vance! At all.”   
  
“Yeah, yeah. You’re later than a week, I’m totally telling Ikora on you. She’s scarier than Zavala any day," Wick pulled off the helmet, hair askew.   
  
“I promise.” Mouse said firmly. “A week.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

  
*

He’d seen vids of the Reef, of course.

He knew as much about it as anyone could, listening to Hunters’ audio playbacks as he tended his rooftop garden, or slogging through convoluted Warlock texts that made him wonder if any of them had actually met a Reefborn Awoken or were just bullshitting.

Mouse had, once or twice or a hundred times considered just popping off there during the course of what they were called the Red War. It wasn’t like it wasn’t on the way to Titan or Io or Nessus or that terrifying planet-eating worm and the weird rich guy who lived on it.

But Titans, more than any class of Guardian, responded to the call of public service over personal gain. Zavala had drilled that into his brain at the Tower, Ouros had drilled that into his body at the Forge. And for the longest time, before the war, it had never occurred to him that he could just… go there.

“Mouse.” Stellamaris suddenly piped up and he shook the daydreams from his head. They’d passed out of Mars orbit hours ago and the reef spread out before them.

**

The fighters were on them in seconds, his weaponless ship’s tactical displays showing the imminent danger in glorious detail.

“Guardian ship this is Vesta Patrol. We don’t have you registered for entry into the Reef. Identify yourself or be destroyed,” a woman’s voice came over the comms.

Mouse had noticed something over the years. A small thing, really. There was a slight echo, a tiny bit of feedback to Awoken voices. Impossible to hear in the normal din of the Tower, but clear as day if you knew what you were looking for in the quiet.

Here, now, the woman’s voice had a beautiful music to it, not just the deadened trill of the voices he knew. It made him smile as he keyed the comms back. “Vesta, this is City Hawk October Whiskey One Niner Five,” he tried to drawl like a hunter, confident, but it came back wooden to his own ears. One glance over his shoulder at the ugly lump of Cabal electronics in the ship’s hold, a lump he’d stashed in the Forge ages ago, and he took a deep breath. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’ve got a Cabal matter replicator on board. Brother Vance sends his deepest sympathies to your people and hoped this might help repay the years of hospitality the Awoken gave him in some small way.”

Beside him, Stel made that wheezing sound again. “I don’t like how good you are at this.” the little ghost hissed in his ear.

The pilot’s voice came back sharply. “We’ll see about that. Transmitting vectors. You deviate even a hair and I will personally blow you out of the sky, City Hawk.”

“Copy that, Vesta. Locking on vector now and preparing for approach.” Mouse sighed as he keyed off the comms and raked back his violet hair. “Stel, don’t worry. I got this.”

“I know you don’t always enjoy talking all that much,” Stel softened a bit. “But you are doing really well.”

“Thanks, partner.” Mouse smiled a bit as Vesta loomed before them.

***

There were three memories, fragments really, that Mouse knew were not his but still belonged to his bones.

  1. _the spacesuit on his body is so different, he feels like he can't breathe. His chest hurts and there is something akin to panic in his veins, but not quite. Urgency, perhaps. There's only the battered surface of a ship’s hull and his hands shaking as he holds the cutter. If they don't repair the hull breach, they’ll lose the crop, and starvation will only be one of the ways they’ll all die_
  2. _She is going to make an example of him for betraying her, he knows it as her people break his hands again. He screams because he was never a fighter, he was never strong._
  3. _There is a hand on his chest, milky blue to the faint violet of his own. He can never see the face they go with, just eyes that remind him of a sun. One phrase in a soft, trilling voice: “Bevan Tar, you are the most infuriating creature I have ever met.”_



In quiet moments, Mouse let himself ponder who his first life had been. Stel knew his name, his old name, but they never spoke about it. And the rules, of course, were clear on the matter.

As he set his borrowed ship down in the hangar, surrounded by fighters, his hands started to shake, just a bit, in his borrowed gloves. He shoved on his borrowed helmet, and gave Stel a little nod. “It smells like cheese in here,” he grumbled instead of voicing his fear.

“Don’t you worry,” Stel zipped around him to settle over his shoulder. “I’ve got your back.” The little ghost murmured as the manual hatch ground open. “Worst comes to worst, I'm _really_ good at faking your death."


	4. Chapter 4

  
*  
Mouse exited the ship, hands up as a number of weapons were leveled at him.

The patrol captain strode up, narrowed her eyes at him and Mouse just nodded towards the ship. “I'm open for inspection, captain,” he said.

“Take off the helmet,” she barked, waving two guards aboard Wick’s ship. As he unlatched the beaked hunter’s mask his friend had given him, a moment of panic set in. He made a fervent, silent prayer to the Traveler, the Forge and whatever Osiris believed in that Wick didn't have a stash of dangerous contraband hidden in it somewhere.

There weren't immediate calls for his death, so he took a deep breath and pulled off the helmet. But a murmur rippled through the assembled pilots and guards.

The captain had a look of undisguised disgust on her pale green face. “I heard there were creatures like you among the Guardians.” She said grimly.

“And you would do better to be more hospitable, Captain,” a man’s voice with a nearly subsonic echo broke through the sounds of the busy hangar. The speaker strode in, dark armour and blue black hair, eyes golden in frosty blue skin. “Is there a problem, Captain?”

“Your… highness,” the captain said carefully. “This guardian claims to have a cabal matter replicator taken from mercury. Brought here at the behest of Brother Vance and..”

“I can confirm. I was speaking with Vance earlier, as matter of fact,” Prince Uldren drawled, eyes never quite leaving Mouse’s. “You can let the Regent know all is well.”

The captain seemed unconvinced, but waved some workers over with their dollies. “He's your responsibility then, your highness,” she sketched a bow that Mouse thought was probably less than respectful, but the Prince simply smiled.

“Yes, he is.”

**  
“Walk with me, Guardian,” Uldren said sharply, turning on his heel. “I apologize for the reactions of the ground crew.”

Mouse hurried to follow him across the hangar, Stel zipping in his wake. “It’s ok, uhm. Your highness,” he stammered. “I've heard…”

“That to us, to see one of our own dead hollowed out and used as a puppet by the Light is an abomination?” Uldren stopped abruptly and Mouse skidded to not crash into him.

“I would argue with the puppet part,” Mouse tipped his head. the prince was smaller than him, but not by much. “But I can understand the shock, I think. I'm sorry to cause any trouble.”

Uldren stared at him hard, and Mouse felt a trickle of sweat down his back. “You know, I've made a study of your kind, Guardians, over the last few years and I've found that despite expectations to the contrary, Titans are the most polite of your… sects. Wouldn't you agree?” He leaned closer and Mouse tried not to scowl.

After an uncomfortable beat of silence he sighed. “I'm not going to insult your intelligence, but can I ask how you knew?”

“You don't really walk like a hunter!” Stel helpfully provided and the Prince blinked in surprise.

“Your highness, this is my ghost, Stellamaris. Stel, Prince Uldren.” Mouse thought very hard to Stel to please be polite oh light what are you doing.

The prince suddenly laughed. “You have me at a disadvantage, titan dressed like a hunter. Tell me your name and i’ll tell you how I knew.”

“They call me Mouse,” he said, unprepared for the brief ghost of disappointment on Uldren’s face.

***  
“A deal, then. I did speak to Vance earlier. The man is a fool and an ideologue, but frankly he has the loosest lips in the system and that is invaluable. He rambled on about things as he does, then proceeded to tell me a story. That he was made aware by one of his assistants that they saw the armour of a certain titan who had apparently agreed to listen to a dramatic reading of his latest self-insert fiction piece about Osiris.” The prince smiled like a cat and Mouse scrubbed his hand over his face.

“When he confronted said titan, he discovered it was in fact a hunter whom he dislikes intensely. The hunter told him all the cool Guardians were switching armour these days, and then, and I quote ‘ran clanking back into the desert at a remarkable speed’ yelling something about the Reef,” Uldren had the most vicious smile Mouse had ever seen. “I don't blame you for trying to avoid Vance’s writings, honestly. He presented me with a seven hundred page tome of his last magnum opus. I use it to level a bookshelf.”

“I'm going to murder Wick so hard, his ancestors feel it,” Mouse groaned.

“I'm curious as to why you assumed such an elaborate ruse? Regardless of your class we all tend to view Guardians the same way here.” Uldren folded his arms.

“I didn't mean to lie,” Mouse started and Stel started to argue. “...to you or your people. It was meant for my own. Awoken titans are… strongly discouraged from coming here.”

“Zavala is afraid you might stay,” Uldren’s face softened. “You remind me of someone I once knew.”

“I doubt that, your highness,” Mouse absently fidgeted with his hair. “I died, my first death at least, a very, very long time ago.”

“Come with me,” Uldren took him by the arm, and the two of them stared at each other for another long beat. “How old do you think I am, guardian?”

“Honestly, I have absolutely no frame of reference,” Mouse laughed ruefully.

“I was born in the first clash of Light and Darkness we were created from. When my sister rose up and sang us awake,” Uldren said, and Mouse felt his heart stutter. “A very, very long time ago.”

***  
They walked in silence down a series of winding corridors. Mouse felt the shift of gravity and atmo pressure as they moved from the Outpost to another, attached, asteroid.

Eventually, a rusted hallway opened up into what looked like a greenhouse. Low light plants filled the room, dominated by a twisting tree hung with a few faint panicles of luminous white flowers.

“In our earliest days, when survival was in doubt, our queen ordered what a farm from which we could make to feed our people. One botanist in our midst, fought her, saying we needed several small ones. It would be more work, but the system was becoming infested with Fallen and Vex and Hive. If we lost one large farm we were doomed, we lost one small one out of a number, we would live. He was right.” Uldren stared sadly at the tree. “She eventually had his name scrubbed from our history.”

Mouse was only half listening, crouching by the tree, and the prince stood by him “What are you looking at?”

“The tree… it's rootbound, I think. Choking to death in the very spot it's supposed to thrive in. If your people cut the root structure back and increase irrigation, it should start to really thrive again with some care.” Mouse said absently, straightening.

“Are you a botanist, then?” Uldren’s stare was hard on him.

“More like a determined amateur gardener,” Mouse laughed but the prince’s face was sad.

“His name. Bevan Tar…” Uldren started.

“You are the most infuriating creature…” Mouse blurted out, then covered his mouth as Uldren’s eyes grew huge.

“...I have ever met.” Uldren finished with a sharp breath. “It really is you.”


	5. Chapter 5

 

*

 

They stared at each other, gold meeting green and Mouse thought he heard Stel saying something from a million miles away.

 Then Uldren was on him, slamming him back against the ancient tree, hand fisting in Mouse’s violet hair as he kissed him. There was nothing tender at first in that kiss. It was ferocious and the titan let it take him.

It wasn’t that Guardians didn’t have sex. They did. Sex with another Guardian was a strange thing, oddly vulnerable and full of awkward commentary from attendant ghosts. Sex with “civilians” was discouraged, if only because a human life was often a blink to a Guardian, and there were more Crucible Groupies and death fetishists drawn to them then the Vanguard liked to admit. 

Mouse had experienced his share of all of them and nothing was like this angry, passionate face-mashing. (Golden eyes like a sun, milky blue skin against his own) and Mouse slid down the trunk of the tree, dragging the prince with him. He pushed Uldren back, eyes wide and licked his lips.

 “It _was_ you,” he whispered, feeling the Light raging in his nerves against something older. “In my memory.” 

Uldren’s eyes narrowed and he stiffened just a bit. “What are you talking about?”

Mouse’s hands twitched on the prince’s arms. “We. We don’t get many memories of our past lives, we’re not supposed to look for them.” he said quickly, feeling a strange damp in his eyes. “But there’s one and it’s you. And we…” he paused at the confused look he was getting in return, then barrelled forward with it. “We are very naked and you are very handsy…” Mouse whispered hoarsely as he let go. Uldren’s gloved hands were on his face, wiping away the tears he couldn’t stop, raking through his hair as he drew close again. “And you... are telling me what a colossal pain in the ass I am.” he finished, softly against the prince’s lips.

“That is the truest memory you could have, Bevan Tar,” Uldren replied with a distant smile.

 

**

The second kiss was slower,  Uldren straddling him as he took the time to trace the contours of Mouse’s face with his lips. “Cosmic irony. My sister, my queen… disappears, and in her place, beyond all hope, _you_ return to me,” his chest shook with a low chuckle. “Bevan Tar, the unkillable.”

 Mouse dragged his hands down Uldren’s back, pulled him closer. “Pretty… pretty killable actually,” he groaned as the prince forced his head back, mouth on the beating pulse in his throat. “Am I home?” the words broke in his throat, and Uldren cupped his face, golden eyes undreadable as they searched Mouse’s face.

“You _are_ home,” he said firmly,  in a low voice, running one thumb along Mouse’s cheek.

“Excuse me,” Stel said, right next to Mouse’s ear, and the titan whipped his head around fast enough that the ghost smacked him right in the face. He felt Uldren sit back, and shake with what had to be a badly suppressed laugh.

“Stel, **what**.” Mouse wheezed.

“I hate to break up… whatever this is, exactly, but i’m picking up activity in the hallway. I think it’s a maintenance crew,” the little ghost bobbed, and Mouse swore Stel had just shot the prince a dirty look.

When he looked back to the prince, Uldren had recomposed himself, and stood with as much dignity as he could muster. “You’re not going back to Earth,” he said. It was half question, half order.

 “Not yet, I guess?” Mouse leaned his head against the tree, meeting Uldren’s gaze.

The prince reached into his armour and drew out a small bit of glittering purple stone. “A royal amethyst. Show it at any lodging in the Outpost. They’ll know what to do,” he said, and Mouse took it.

“This isn’t some ploy where I end up getting murdered, is it?” he tried to joke as he pushed himself to standing and the prince shot him a look that was a complicated mix of annoyance and delight.

 “If I wanted you dead,” Uldren murmured against Mouse’s cheek. “You would be dead already, Bevan.” then he stepped back. “I have things to take care of, but I will come for you tomorrow. Deal, Guardian?”

“Deal.”

 

***

 

Mouse hadn’t realised how strangely empty he would feel, watching Uldren leave. He chewed it over as Stel led him back to the Outpost proper.

It was surprisingly busy, a mix of traders from Earth (a surprising number of Exos, he noticed, stepping around a kiosk where a Cabal deserter and a Fallen missing an arm bartered with an Awoken and her Exo assistant for a bag of greyish protein.

A few obvious Guardians, hunters and warlocks, buying knives and books as their ghosts darted around nervously.

There was lodging at the edge of the massive skiff’s hull. Half bar, half rest stop for foreigners and the Reefborn curious about them, and when the proprietor saw the amethyst in Mouse’s hand, her vaguely professional smile cracked and she just pointed him to a room up the stairs.

It was small, built out of a Fallen cargo container, but it had a bed, a dry bath, and a shuttered view of the market. Mouse flopped on the bed and stared up at the metal ceiling. “Everything happened so fast,” he said, staring at the jewel. "Stel, we should have come here sooner."

“Mouse?” Stel settled on the cover next to him and Mouse rolled over to look at his ghost.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do. Do you want me to call you ‘Bevan’ now? I know you never wanted to use that name because you didn’t feel comfortable with it. And.. are we going to stay here? I mean, it feels funny, but if you’re going to stay, there’s no way I wouldn’t stay with you and you’re my guardian and…” the words tumbled out of Stel in a blur, and Mouse sat up, scooping the ghost in his hand.

“I’m always going to be your guardian, and I’m always going to be your Mouse, I promise, Stel. No matter what happens. We’re a set, right?” Mouse soothed.

“I’m scared, Mouse.” Stel’s shell slid together miserably.

“Don’t be. This is just like Ana, finding her way home to Rasputin, right?” Mouse set Stel on his lap, and the ghost’s orb turned to look up at him. “And we’ll be back on Earth before you know it.”


	6. Chapter 6

 

*

_ The Warlock,  a starfield witch, ether dancing from her fingertips as she glides across the battlefield, young suns burning in her robe. _

  
_ The Hunter, a moonshadow crow, cloak like black wings as he vanishes into the dead black between stars, snaring the unaware in a web of dark matter. _

  
_ The Titan, a black hole knight, oily rainbows of the event horizon gleaming through his armour, the maul of dead stars in his hands and even the Taken fall before it. _

  
_ Three. Always three. Mihaylova, Qiao, Hardy- a lost god’s first contact with humanity sets the template for it’s dreams. The Starfield Witch, The Moonshadow Crow. The Black Hole Knight. A might have been, a once was, a never will. _

  
_ They are so young and full of power. They are so old, and the weight of a hundred thousand lives lays on their shoulders. _

Mouse sat bolt upright, too awake too quickly, a moment of panic overcoming him as he looked around the small unfamiliar room. But there was Stel, blue-glowing face pointed at his and he took a breath and flopped back. “Light,” he groaned.

The ghost hovered over his head. “You never talk about when you have visions, but I know when they’re not dreams, you know,” Stel settled beside him.

“I don’t know if that  _ was _ a vision,” Mouse covered his face. 

“It was. You have very different habits when you dream normally. LIke when you dreamt Ghaul was actually an infinite number of  frogs in a suit.”

“Are you watching me sleep?” Mouse prodded the little ghost and hauled himself up. “Nevermind, do not answer that.”

“Are you going to try and contact Uldren?” Stel asked, following Mouse to the drybath.

“ _ Yes _ , Stel.” Mouse rubbed himself down, trying to shake the lingering dream from the back of his neck. “Please, relax.”

“The Reef makes my shell prickle,” Stel made an approximation of a sniff while Mouse pulled on his borrowed clothes. “Maybe you should put your other armour back on. Just in case.”

“This has kept Wick alive more than once. It’ll do till we’re heading home,” Mouse gave the ghost a little prod.

“Your normal armour is harder to get off,” Stel mumbled as he bobbed away.

Mouse was about to tease his ghost for jealousy, when there was a sharp rap at the door. His usual weapons were stowed, but he put the sidearm in his belt as he carefully opened it.

The woman standing there, with white hair and greenish skin gave him an appraising look. “You don’t look like I expected.” she said, squinting. “You almost look like a real person.” 

“Can I help you?” he asked, feeling a little hurt.

“My master assigned me to bring you this,” she offered a data card to him. “He said to tell you this isn’t some ploy where you end up murdered.”

Mouse took it, and Stel scanned the contents. “It’s flight coordinates to another part of the Reef.”

He looked up to thank her, but she’d vanished without a trace. One of Uldren’s Crows, then.

“Guess we’re going on a ride,” Mouse shrugged.

“I hate this more every moment,” Stel groaned.

**

Vesta Control had given him clearance, grudgingly, with a sour admonition to not get to used to it and that it wasn’t going to be their fault if Mouse ran afoul of pirates or corsairs.

Stel bobbed in the cockpit, shell pressed together in what passed for a silent glower as Mouse threaded through the asteroids. Webs of stone and metal formed habitats, but there was little sign of life.

“They lost so many people during the Taken War,” Stel said as they glided past an uninhabited stretch of empty structures.

“It’s just one thing after another, isn’t it?” Mouse nodded as another piece of space debris came into view.

His first thought was that it looked like part of Failsafe’s superstructure. Chunks of the  Golden Age ships where humans had fled the earth, and the Awoken had been born in the dark days of the Collapse.

He threaded the ship between the massive towers that jutted from the rocky surface to find a landing place, and pulled Wick’s helmet back on. “No place to safely set down. Looks like it’s transmat and walk.”

“Take some better weapons, please.” Stel spat out a heavy handgun and a rifle from the depths of his storage space. 

“Yes, Mom.” Mouse said as the stomach-churning twist of transmat dumped them on the surface. 

Icy dust kicked up as they made their way down a rocky path. The HUD flashed warnings for the cold, the vacuum, all of it. The Reef had never benefited from the vestiges of the Traveler’s terraforming spree across the system.

The airlock was extremely old, but the crust of ice and dust had been recently disturbed. Cautiously, Mouse pulled the heavy latch and the outer door cranked open, shaking the rock beneath their feet as it ground.

It re-sealed behind them with a clang as the HUD began to display rising atmo and stable gravity. 

As the pressure equalized, Mouse ran a hand along the ancient wall. “I know this place, I’ve been here before.”

The inner door slowly opened, and they stepped into a cavernous room. Maps and datapads littered a nearby table, and there was every sign someone had been using it. Going on instinct, Mouse crossed the room, down a corridor, and through a door that looked like all the others.

“Of course, you would find the mess on instinct alone,” Uldren said from the cramped kitchen. “I keep supplies here for when I have to retreat into thought.” He tossed Mouse a container. “It’s Cabal moonshine. It’s awful, but it’s plentiful, at least.”

“This place…” Mouse cracked open the can and winced at the smell before taking a slug of it. “Oh, oh Light this is terrible.” He took another drink. “This place. It’s old…”

“It’s one of the first holdfasts we built in the Reef…” Uldren took a swig of his own, and Mouse followed him out of the kitchen. “After we awoke. A place to fall back to as the Hive and the Cabal and the Eliksni swept in. Not many of these places survived, scavenged to build newer, better habitats.”

“I feel like there’s ghosts all around,” Mouse said as they came back to the main room. “Echoes I can’t quite hear.” Purple light seeped in through the shuttered windows and there was a brief stab of memory, and the bones in his hands ached.

_ Earth needs what we can do. If we stay here any longer… _

_ Mara won’t hear of it. This is our kingdom now. _

“I died on Earth because I chose to leave.” Mouse shivered at the touch Uldren placed on his back. 

“You made a choice, and paid a heavy price for it. The earthborn ones, they’re not a part of what we are anymore, but they made that choice too. But they don’t even remember you, do they?” Uldren asked, stepping in front of him.

“I went to the archives once, to see if there was any sign of the name i had in my head,” Mouse said, tipping his face against Uldren’s hand. “There wasn’t, so I put it away.”

There was a twitch, just a moment, of something cold in the prince’s expression as he tangled his fingers in Mouse’s hair.  Then it passed, and he smiled. “Let’s see if your instinct remembers where your bed was, as well.”

 

***

The room was at the top of a series of rickety landings, and along each narrow step and walkway, was a trail of discarded armour and weapons.

Bare flesh hummed against flesh as Uldren pushed him down and Mouse hooked a leg around the prince’s hips to pull him close. “Are we doing this backwards?” He joked weakly, lifting his hips to grind against the pale blue thigh between his legs. “Like have deep, memory stirring conversations before the sex?” He choked out the last word as Uldren bit down on the knot of muscle where his shoulder met the side of his neck. “Or not.”

“You always talked too much,” Uldren snorted, pulling away.  It was too cold with skin apart from skin, but he grinned as he lay himself down. “I have a better use for that mouth of yours.”

The taste, the scent of the prince’s shaft in his mouth brought with it a jumble of thoughts an feelings he couldn’t place, and Mouse gently scraped his teeth along the deeper blue flesh, shivering at the scrape of Uldren’s nails against his scalp. Slow and deep, and the feel of it in the back of his throat was new and familiar all at once.

Mouse pushed himself up, and trailed sharp kisses up the stretch of pale blue body beneath him, Uldren’s legs sliding across his hips. 

The prince blind-handed for a bottle of dark oily liquid that looked suspiciously like something Mouse had seen on a cabal ship and he started to laugh. “Please tell me that’s not the pressure liquid slash rocket fuel slash organic armour lubricant the Cabal use.”

“I will absolutely tell you that.” One dark eyebrow inched up Uldren’s face.

“Traveler’s busted ass. Is that even safe?” Mouse eyed it suspiciously.

“For humans? Probably poisonous. For us? It hasn’t killed me yet.” the prince grinned unsettlingly and reached between them to smear it along the length of Mouse’s shaft. 

It didn’t quite burn, and the feel of it was nearly frictionless. “I’m going to think about this every time I shoot one of them in the head, now.” Mouse whined, ducking his head against Uldren’s throat. “Thanks for that.”

“Thank me when we’re done,” the man beneath him growled and then hissed softly as Mouse very slowly pushed into his rear. “Ah, you’re gentle, titan.”

“I’m careful.  I can rip a Fallen apart with my bare hands, you know.” Mouse picked up the pace, the old bed scraping beneath them as his hips drove his shaft deeper into the other man. 

Uldren took himself in hand as they found their rhythm together, silent now except for the sharp hitch of breath and the scrape of metal on metal.

Mouse felt it coiling in his belly, the need for release, and he tried to think of the Commander looking disapprovingly on these shenanigans or the fact that they were fucking with Cabal goop. He half wished Stel would say something inappropriate, but the ghost had chosen to remove himself from the grind of bodies.

It didn’t help.

He came with a gasp, almost as when his new lungs had first taken air,  and Uldren growled Bevan Tar’s name as he arched beneath Mouse’s solid form. They sagged together, lazy kisses replacing urgency and carefully, Uldren disentangled himself from Mouse to turn in his embrace. “I’ve heard stories about Guardian stamina. I plan to put that to the test.”


	7. Chapter 7

 

*

Stellamaris -  _ Traveler-born, Titan-Bound, Blessed of the Light  _ \- had put himself into a low-power cycle the moment Mouse’s pants hit the floor. 

He’d kept just enough awareness in case his Guardian was in genuine distress, but not enough to  _ consciously _ count the number of ways Mouse and the prince found to mash their body parts together ( _ twenty seven _ ). He might not have approved at how things were progressing, but he also didn’t have in him to deny his partner something so clearly…  _ wanted _ .

When his subconscious monitoring had registered an extended period of quiet, Stel cycled back up cautiously. Mouse was sprawled alone on the bed, deep in the kind of sleep the ghost had only seen him in rarely. He clucked his shell at the scattering of bruises and bite marks that peppered the broad, pale purple expanse of Mouse’s back, and ever so gently wiped them away.

Stel noted, with some disdain, that Uldren was gone, and ran through a few possibilities where he could simply jolt Mouse awake and usher a groggy titan back out to their ship. Three ended with Mouse forgetting to put his helmet on and dying in what  _ Vanguard Magazine _ had determined by an unofficial poll of Guardians the least pleasant way to go: violent decompression.

The rest ended in his Guardian being incredibly mad at him, which Stel wasn’t sure was an acceptable outcome yet.

The option he was left with, the one that he’d hoped to avoid, was to go track down the Awoken prince and find out how he could possible leave Mouse alone.

 

**

It didn’t take long. Stel had tracked countless beings through worse environments than an antiquated habitat.

Uldren hadn’t bothered to close the door of the room behind him, and Stel drifted silently into the slice of soft light.

He was there, a robe hanging loose over his shoulders as he pondered a spread of stellar maps on the wall. A little floating diamond played some atonal, warbly tune, and Stel noted “ _ Awoken pop music is awful _ ” in his logs.

More maps, more datapads were scattered on the table. The esoteric scribblings of a Warlock or Tech Witch on a nearby scratch board. There were Cabal schematics too, and Stel thought it might have been a breakdown of the cage Ghaul had placed on the Traveler. 

“You stole that from the Vanguard!” Stel blurted out, slamming his shell closed the moment he’d realised he’d said it out loud and the prince whipped around.

When no attack happened, Stel cracked open, just a bit, to find Uldren staring at him. “Little Light? Where’s Bevan?” he asked with a quirk of a dark eyebrow, arms folded.

“ _ Mouse _ is still sleeping. I watched him fall asleep on Nessus one day,  while Vex and Fallen were having a skirmish about ten feet away,” Stel muttered.  

“And so, little light, you came down here by yourself to see what I was up to?” Uldren took a sip of the vile Cabal brew, and swept a hand out, inviting the ghost in.

“Those plans are from the Vanguard.”  Stel said again, perturbed.

“I’m the Reef’s chief intelligence officer, no different than your Ikora Rey and her Hidden.” Uldren smiled thinly as Stel’s shell narrowed at him. “There isn’t a faction in this system that isn’t jockeying to study what Ghaul did. The difference is we have more of an interest in keeping Guardians functional, then say, the Vex do.”

“Hmph,” Stel muttered. 

Uldren sat down, robe falling around him in soft, dark folds. “You care about him so much, don’t you?”

“He’s my Guardian. I’m his ghost, of course I do!” Stel bristled. “I searched for years for him. And when I found him, I knew I would always protect him.

“Please, tell me about it?” The prince patted the table near him, inviting the ghost to join him. “Little Li… Stellamaris. My sister, the queen, she’s lost right now.”

“They’re saying back on Earth, that she’s dead. I’m… I’m sorry,” Stel drifted over. “We shouldh have said…”

“Please. My sister absolutely hated Bevan at the end. Although, if he expressed his sympathy, it might enrage her enough to manifest from where ever she’s vanished to,” the prince shook his head.

“Honestly. They thought I was dead too. I understand my memorial was deeply moving,” Uldren snorted. “I’m sure, if I survived, Mara had to as well. But it feels like an impossible task, finding her. I take it as the very best of omens that  the universe has decided to show me that love has a way of surviving.” 

Stel made a noise of grudging assent, and the prince laughed. “I care about him too, Stel. I mean him no harm, but there’s so much I don’t know. Will you help me- it would help him too.”

“I… I guess,” Stel sighed dramatically. “Fine.”

 

***

He told Uldren of the bones, half-buried in a dead, dry riverbank. About the tiny creatures who’d made their nests in the empty skull of what the ghost had known to be his partner from the moment he’d seen them.

About how the Light inside Stel had built flesh and blood out of nothing and how those first few moments, he’d been so afraid his Guardian would not breathe. But those green eyes had snapped open as he’d gasped awake, and Stel knew everything was going to be all right.

The prince listened attentively, golden eyes intent on Stel as the ghost darted back and forth. His pride at Mouse’s first taste of water, the first Fallen he’d scavenged clothes and weapons from. How rain confused him, and how they’d huddled in a ruined city as lightning split the sky.

“Do you know… how he died?” Uldren sat back, interrupting Stel as the ghost prepared to launch into a story about their first time on Mercury.

“No. Not really.” Stel bobbed, his shell sliding downwards. “I think he was stabbed to death though. There were gouges on his ribs. Not like tooth marks. There were a lot of those too, but i think something ate him after he was dead,” the ghost paused. “Oh, that sounds terrible. I would never let anything eat him now.”

Uldren chewed the inside of his cheek. “I’m so glad he has such a diligent caretaker. Bevan had a way of getting himself into trouble, even back when we were together.”

“Someone tortured him, before he died,” Stel hummed. “I had to fix his hands when I brought him back. I would never let anyone do that to him again, either.”

“Does he remember that? How does he remember anything at all if he was just bones?” Uldren leaned towards Stel and the ghost perked.

“Paracausal inference. In the Light, all points of time converge. It’s how we know who our Guardians are supposed to be!” Stel said proudly. “Guardians aren’t supposed to remember, though. But a lot of them do. Strong moments. Even Commander Zavala, although he tries harder than anyone to not think about his past.”

“He’s Awoken as well,” Uldren said carefully and Stel bobbed in agreement.

“Exos remember the most, even if it’s scrambled, because they’re usually more intact. But the Awoken Guardians, they have visions sometimes, and I know the Commander tries to find ways to stop it.” Stel sighed. “He worries, even about himself, I think.”

“It is a struggle, I would think,” Uldren stood and began to pace. “We are not beings of the Light, but we’re not of the Darkness either, not like the Hive or the Taken. You could say we are liminal beings. A precious creation that needs to be protected, my sister would say.”

Stel watched him stride across the room.

“When you lost your Light, it must have been dreadful,” the prince said, staring at the schematics of the cage.

“It was hard. He was afraid, but he wouldn’t tell anyone as we helped people find safety. He knew they were even more scared. But… the visions, they got worse without the Light. Sometimes he would forget where he was. He would get… confused. I didn’t tell him about those times,” Stel admitted sheepishly.

“Without the light, he was trying to become himself again,” Uldren said, mostly to himself, and Stel drifted closer to hear.  The prince smiled at him. “Thank you, Stellamaris. I’ve learned so much.”


	8. Chapter 8

 

*

By their fifth day in the Reef, they’d created something of a routine. Uldren would disappear for hours to “take care of his duties” while Mouse dove into the books he brought back or explored the habitat. They cooked, they drank horrific Cabal moonshine and shared stories. And they coupled as if their lives depended on the press of gleaming skin to skin.

The sixth morning, Stel came out of his self-protective downcycle to find both Mouse and Uldren gone. In a panic, he scanned for his partner’s signatures, and eventually found Mouse in what had been the habitat’s small greenhouse. 

Faint greenish luminescence filtered in through the thick-paned transparasteel panels, and the titan was crosslegged amongst the feral plants, reading. He was shirtless, the light catching the planes of muscle in his arms and illuminating the scrawls of tattoo ink that decorated them. The Lion of the Six Fronts, the Sun Hammer, the poke and stick Sexy Vex he’d gotten, drunk with his fireteam.

He looked like he might have been crying.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Stel fretted around him and Mouse pushed his long hair off his shoulder to invite the ghost to light there for a moment. “Are you all right?”

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Mouse said, running his fingers down an absolutely ancient datapad. “Uldren raided the royal libraries for me this time, Stel. Do you know what this is?”

The pad lit up before them and Stel lifted off his shoulder. “It’s notes on using nanotechnology  to modify the genetic structure of food plants to thrive in low-light, low gravity environments. We saw something similar in the Arcology on Titan, didn’t we?”

“We did, but…” Mouse scrolled up the cracked screen and held it up to his ghost. “Stel, Bevan Tar…  _ I...  _ wrote this.”  He gestured to the pile of barely-functioning pads and bound books that had copied some of their contents. “I wrote  _ all of these _ .”

Mouse flopped back into the plants and stared up at the asteroids casting their lazy shadows through the greenhouse. The little ghost floated near him, and Mouse gently prodded his shell. “I asked Uldren if he knew why I’d gone back to Earth, after working so hard to help build all of this.”

“What did he say?” Stel dropped to hover closer, blue eye flickering in concern.

“He just said his sister… the Queen… and I …” Mouse waved his hand vaguely. “Had a falling out. That I was better off not remembering the bad things.” With a grunt, he pushed himself up. “I don’t know if I agree.”

 

**

 

“Agree with what?” Uldren’s voice came from the doorway, and Mouse felt his heart skip a beat. 

“My insistence propagating citrus fruits for one thing,” Mouse lay back as Uldren strolled towards him. “My old writings have a really weird obsession with scurvy.”

“Wait until I find the three hundred pages of arguments you had with the engineers about the water recyclers,”  Uldren straddled him, and gently stroked Mouse’s face with a small, fond smile. “You always did what you wanted.”

Mouse closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. “I don’t know what  _ to _ do.”

“You can stay here, and I’ll recover every bit of old writing I can for you. You can make this greenhouse thrive again, make this your home,” Uldren ran his thumb over Mouse’s lower lip. “I don’t want you to go back to the City.”

“I can’t stay cooped up in here forever, you know that.”  Mouse half-purred as Uldren leaned down to kiss him. “I can’t escape my duty as a Guardian, or as a Sunbreaker.”

“ _ Sunbreaker _ . You always did turn your face to the sun, like your beloved plants,” Uldren murmured against Mouse’s lips. “I just want you to stay here, in twilight, just a little longer, Bevan.”

“Even if I go back, you’re not going to lose me. Not again,” Mouse bit down the crest of emotion in his chest. 

“Do you think Zavala knows what he had in you?” Uldren sat back, hands splayed on Mouse’s bare chest. “A treasure he sealed in an armoured can to throw at the City’s enemies? The Light brought you back, but it turned you into a weapon.”

Mouse pushed himself back up to sitting, and the prince threaded his fingers through his hair. “A weapon that can help protect the Reef as well as Earth,” Mouse ghosted a kiss against Uldren’s jaw. “Even if I am an abomination in their eyes.” he added with a little laugh.

“I’ll make sure you’re not, love. Not ever again,” Uldren said, and kissed him hard.

 

***

 

Stel woke up from his downcyle by a soft tapping on his shell. The ghost swiveled about to glare up at the prince. “Wha…?"

“Stellamaris, _shh_.” Uldren offered his hand to the ghost and Stel floated cautiously to it. “I need your help. To make something for Bevan, so we can stay in touch, so I can help him, even after you leave. Do you approve?”

“I suppose,”  Stel whispered back and followed Uldren downstairs. They continued down through another series of doors that had been sealed during Mouse’s expeditions. “What is all this?”

“I’ve been working on something special, Little Light,” Uldren led them into a workshop. “And I want you to know, I am so very,  _ very _ grateful that you saved him, that you brought him back.”

“I was scared to come here, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so… happy,” Stel bobbed over to examine the scattered parts on the table. “I’m glad to…”

Stel’s voice stuttered and snapped as the little cage clamped around his shell. “Hel.. Wh.wh. _ help?” _

“It’s not your fault, Stellamaris, you’re only doing what you were made to,” Uldren purred, cradling the jittering ghost in his hands. “But I’m not losing Bevan to the Traveler again. It will just burn him up inside, dying over and over for the whims of a capricious ball in the sky.”

The last thing Stel saw before his screen went black, was Uldren’s gentle, terrifying smile.


	9. Chapter 9

 

*

The habitat’s lighting was still in night mode as Mouse woke to a series of gentle bites along his throat. He hummed happily and rolled over with a groggy blink and a yawn. “Good… morning?” 

Uldren was dressed, not in full armour, but the plain dark clothes he favoured under it, and he tucked back his own blue-black hair, gleaming eyes narrowing with his smile. “I can’t let you sleep your birthday away, can I, now?”

“Birthday?” Mouse tried to keep his eyes open, but he was so groggy still and the bed was so warm with Uldren’s body next to his. They were supposed to leave today, he thought distantly, but the comfort was too great to resist. “Mrrghph.”

“We don’t celebrate individual ones, like humans do,” Uldren ran his hand down Mouse’s hip, and gently nudged his thigh between the titan’s legs. Mouse trilled a sleepy purr, deep in his chest and moved against it, chasing Uldren’s hand with his lips as the prince stroked his face. “We celebrate, joyfully as a people, the day we were born again, the day we… awoke.”

“That’s nice,” Mouse murmured as he nuzzled Uldren’s hand. “There isn’t anything like that in the City, at least none for Guardians.” He ground himself with feline laziness against the prince’s thigh. “One of us has got too many clothes on right now y’know.”

“Come on, then, up lazy beast, and come see what I have for you,” the prince pushed Mouse on his back and the titan caught him for one final, lingering kiss before he got up. “I won’t even make you put on pants if you don’t want.”

Mouse laughed and hauled himself off the bed. The room immediately felt like it had slid two feet to the left and he stumbled, hitting the floor hard.  “ _ Light _ . I think we have to lay off the Cabal hooch. I didn’t think I could get hungover,” he mumbled, shaking.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you,” Uldren helped him up, but the room wouldn’t stop lurching. With a groan, Mouse stumbled away from him, and threw up unceremoniously in a nearby bin.

He’d only thrown up once in the entirety of his immortal undeath life. When he’d woken up, bleeding out in the burning City as the Cabal marched through its streets. The world had felt wrong and broken like vertigo spinning out of control, and he couldn’t find Stel. When his Light had been stripped out of him like his spine had been torn out.

“I think something’s wrong with the Light.” Mouse croaked from the floor. Uldren gently draped a robe over his shoulders as he collapsed against him. “Uldren, where’s Stel?”

“There’s nothing wrong. It’s just hard to be born again, Bevan.” Uldren said softly as the world spun. “But you’re not going to be alone this time.”

 

**

 

There were gaps in time and movement and the only constant was Uldren’s hands on his shivering body and his voice soft in Mouse’s ear. It was just a jumble of sounds his brain couldn’t quite order, but the tone of it, that almost subsonic trill, was the beacon he tried to focus on.

Sense finally came back to a degree when he was lying down again, muzzily looking around a cluttered workroom. The cot he was on was soft, a blanket tucked carefully around him, but the room was cold and there was a low sound that squirmed against his skin. There was a weird itch in his bones that took him too long to recognise.  _ Stel _ . His ghost was somewhere nearby.

“We are liminal creatures, existing on the razor’s edge between Light and Darkness,” Uldren said as he brought Mouse a sip of water.  “Too much of either and we get lost.” He stroked Mouse’s hair. “But I know how to save you from the Light now, and when we find Mara, and save her from the Darkness, the three of us will be balanced again, like we used to be. What is it you call it? A fireteam, that’s it, right?”

Mouse couldn’t get his tongue to work, words jittering in his brain.

“And don’t worry, I haven’t hurt your Little Light. I would never hurt him. But I need to break his hold on you, and this is the only way, love,” the prince said and Mouse felt, distantly, a jab in his neck. “I owe you this, this apology. I promise this will make things right again, Bevan.”

There was a smell, the acrid, deep space metal of the Taken, in the back of his throat. Darkness to the stinging acid of the Light in his cells. “The humans fleeing earth carried a payload of programmable nanomatter. When the wave of Light from the Traveler crashed against the tide of the darkness, they were consumed, torn apart and reshaped into something new and beautiful.  The Techeuns still hold that knowledge, as my sister did. It didn’t take too much convincing them that this was a worthwhile endeavour,” Uldren was saying but he sounded further and further away.

Mouse felt like he was drowning. He’d drowned before, in the churning ocean of Titan, in the damaged seas of Earth. Fighting to hold the breath in his lungs on animal instinct. And then the deadly, desperate gasp. 

And he went down into the dark.

 

***

 

He was going into shock, and his body shivered in the throes of it, dark blood splattered against the bare skin of his arms, dark blood pooling around the ruined mass of bone and meat his hands had been.

The pain was still there, but the cold grasp of shock had overtaken it, and he felt his heartbeat stutter as the Queen leaned herself into his field of vision.

“Bevan. Are you still there? Good.” She said in a low voice, gently pushing a sweaty lock of hair from his face. “I don’t want you  _ dead _ , after all.”

Bevan Tar took a broken breath and tried to find the Mara Sov he knew in the Queen’s eyes. “Wh.  _ Wh _ . Why?”

“Because you chose to align yourself with those fools crying to return to Earth? I don’t enjoy this, my sweet, but there must be an example made. If I cannot maintain control of our people, we will fall to ruin,” the Queen smiled thinly at him.

“Y. You. You can’t control everything, Mara,” Bevan swallowed, his mouth dry as a dead world as he trembled in the bloody chair. 

“You of all people should know how wrong that statement is. And think of the privilege you still have, Bevan. If anyone but you or Uldren called me by my name…  _ well _ .” The Queen stroked his face, then turned to a figure in the shadows. “You may have him back now. If he tells you where the rest of his conspirators are, let him have some rest.”

There was a glint of golden eyes from the shadows as Uldren stepped forward. “Yes my Queen.”

When she was gone, Uldren knelt beside him, gently wiping his brow. “There, now. I’m going to help you, love.”

Any tears Bevan had had been used up and he just looked away. “H… help me? You… you did…  you did this…” he tried to make the words come and they wouldn’t.

“I had to. She required  proof of my loyalty. I had to stay in Mara’s trust so I could save you,” Uldren carefully wrapped Bevan’s hands, each movement causing a fresh tremor of pain. “My crows have gotten the others to a skiff. I’ll take you to them.”

Bevan blinked at him, confused as Uldren helped him to his feet. “What?”

“You’ll all be exiles on Earth, but I know you will help them. You always were the strong one, beloved,” Uldren said as he limped Bevan down a corridor. “And maybe someday, I will see you again.”

Bevan collapsed on the gangway to the skiff and…

There was smoke, screaming, the smell of burning Fallen electronics. He would never see the three mile long gouge the skiff had cut out of the dry earth as it had crashed.

There had been chaos, agents of the Queen, or the Crows, or  _ both _ , and the survivors had fled in panic.

And Bevan Tar looked at the black knife, plain and sharp, jutting from his side as he staggered out into the midday glare, and started to laugh.

He stopped abruptly when Mouse stood before him, watching the dark blood seep into the dust. “My future or my past?” He asked.

Mouse blinked. He remembered this.  _ This vision. _ Just a fragment of deja vu, and he knelt, in gleaming black armour, at his own side. “Paracausal Inference,” he said. “All points in time converge in the Light. Your future.”

“It’s going to be ok, then.” Bevan whispered and Mouse curled against his first life. “That’s good. I was.. I was getting scared.”

“Don’t be. Don’t be scared. You’re going to sleep for a long time, but when you wake up, you’re going to have so many adventures,” Mouse stroked Bevan’s hair, tears running down his face. “I’m sorry I can’t save you.”

“I got to see a blue sky again for the first time, it’s ok.” The luminescence in his green eyes dimmed, and Mouse rocked the man who died to become him. 

“ULDREN!” Mouse - Sunbreaker, Blessed of the Light - screamed at the darkness growing overhead.


	10. Chapter 10

*

Stellamaris was fairly sure he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t feel the Traveler, and he couldn’t feel Mouse, but his Light was still there. He could see, but it was like looking through a hundred layers of glass. Everything was dim, distant, distorted.

Then he remembered the cage. He could feel it itching on his shell and he spun around, wildly trying to reach it, cursing his lack of hands not for the first time.

Seething, the little ghost tried to peer through the containment barrier. Something was moving. Shapes. There was a smear of purple and Stel threw himself against the wall.

“MOUSE! GUARDIAN! I’m in here please you have got to get me out, Uldren is being very strange and he put me in here and PLEASE GET ME OUT!” If Stel had a biological body, his throat would have ached from the yelling.

There was a distant touch, and he knew then that Mouse knew he was there, and Stel tried to flail and shout against the barrier again.

Nothing, and Stel began to panic.  _ Mouse was dead and it was his fault. He’d told Uldren so many things and he had just wanted to help and… _

He felt the tremor deep in his Light. Even through the cage trapping him, the connection was there. A Guardian’s “super” was the purest expression of how the Light flowed through them. The shattering storm of the Arc wielders, the quiet power of the Void users. And the roar of the Solar, the ancient music of the sun itself.

A ghost gave their Guardian the Light they needed, but the strain of the super meant they couldn’t maintain it indefinitely. Ghost and Guardian alike needed to rest and recharge.

Stel felt the pull of a super as it dug through layers of interference, like he had never before in all his years as Mouse’s partner. 

Whatever he was summoning was something new and something terrible.

 

**

_ We exist on the razor’s edge _ , he thought somewhere where Light and Darkness battered against each other.

The rage he’d felt a moment before was abstract, an engram to unfolded and examined.   _Betrayal. Love. Hate._ All of it laid out and he cast it aside. 

The Reef was his world and he would be it's Guardian. 

The fire that burned through him was brilliant, but not the churning fire of the sun. It was the moment a dead star shredded the surface of one that got too close.

He turned the maul over in his hands as the shuddering fire ran up his hands.

_ Bevan Tar. Mouse. Titan. Protector. Destroyer.  _

The Light and Darkness stirred around him and the Black Hole Knight awoke.

 

***

 

The cage shattered and Stel felt the Light rush back into him like a tidal wave. The barrier shattered and sent the little ghost tumbling into  a sudden storm of black fire and howling gravity.

Uldren was on his knees, golden eyes wide at the creature hovering before him as the habitat shredded under the assault.

“What did you do!?!” Stel shouted over the storm, fighting his way to the prince's side.

“I saved him from the Light.” Uldren said wonderingly, oblivious to the chaos swirling around them. “I made a Guardian. I made... a _god_."


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thank you!

*  
  


Programmable nanomatter from the habitat’s ancient supports peeled away forming a titan’s black armour around Mouse’s body, and Stel made himself truly look at his Guardian for a moment.

A corona of dark fire, flickering in oily rainbows across the plates, danced where a Subreaker’s flames would be, and massive black maul burned with the Taken’s sort of _Un-Light_ folding in on an event horizon’s glow. Stel could feel, painfully the feed of Light to Mouse, but the output was far more than what he was pulling.

Floating, Stel didn’t notice the ground begin to shake until Uldren yanked him out of the air threw them both out of the way of the collapsing ceiling.

The ghost twisted and pulled until the prince let him go. “Whatever you did to him, he’s taking both the Light and power from the Ascendant Realm. It’s going to _kill_ him, Uldren. Guardians are strong but they’re not meant to maintain this level of power for any length of time!” Stel shouted as the outer hull of the habitat began to splinter. “It’s going to tear him apart like he’s doing to this asteroid!” He could feel the cracks beginning to form in his shell, but  he held firm. “We have to stop him.

Uldren looked back sadly at the titan hovering in the centre of the storm, then unfolded an engram from his belt and fit an emergency helmet over his head. “Where’s your ship?”

“Stationary orbit a few clicks from here.” Stel yelled back. Before them, twisting tendrils of Un-Light and Un-Dark sprouted, swallowing up everything around it with it’s coiling vines. “Oh this is so bad.”

“I assume you can summon it. Get it here now. I’ll get his attention!” Uldren gave the ghost a little shove.

 

**

 

The Black Hole Knight saw the figure moving towards him, a smaller thing of Light and Darkness, and he folded a pathway for him, distantly curious.

“Bevan! You need to stop this!” Uldren shouted above the din. “You’re going to die if you keep this up! You’re going to hurt Stel if you keep this up!”

He remembered _littlecrow littleman littleprince friendloverenemy_. _Littleghost littlelight titanbound_. _Bevan Tar, dancing on the razor’s_ edge gave way to _Mouse, burning with the Light_. Time collapsed in there, everything reduced to a single event of existence and the tendrils curled under Uldren to bring him closer.

The black helmet he’d made for himself flaked away, and the Knight regarded the prince. “I remember everything,” he said simply, voice thrumming with echoes, red-shifting down the spectrum. “All of it, even the possibilities to come.”

“I’m sorry,” Uldren leaned closer. “I just thought I could truly bring you home again.”

“I had no choice in becoming Awoken. No choice in dying. No choice in my rebirth. And you took away my choice here,” the Knight tilted his head, examining the prince’s face. Gently, dead stars guttering inside of him, he cupped the side of Uldren’s helmet. “But I never stopped loving you, even when I was burned away..”

Most of the habitat was shredded around them, stars and dust glittering overhead. “I can change the course of this system now. I can keep all of them safe, like the Traveler wanted, like I wanted once long ago.”

“Bevan… _MOUSE_! Listen to me. You’re going to die before you can protect anyone. If you’re going to make a choice here, make it to live,” Uldren folded a gloved hand over the armoured one holding him. “If you’re going to make a choice, will you save your friend Stellamaris? You’re killing it too!”

 _Mouse_ blinked and he looked around. He could feel himself burning up in microscopic increments. “You didn’t say _you_ would die, I notice,” he said with a rueful smile.

“I’ve already had so many second chances,” Uldren squeezed his hand. “Plus you _are_ rightfully angry at me. If Mara’s truly gone, then I have no ties.”

Mouse glanced up seeing Wick’s ship wobble out of orbit. “Bad idea letting Stel drive. He’s terrible,” he said, gently letting go of Uldren.  “I can’t stop this. You need to go with him.”

“I promised you, you wouldn’t be alone,” Uldren started, then flailed as Mouse shoved him away. “Bevan, what are you doing!”

“Making a choice,” Mouse said simply and with a fraction of the power, shoved the prince towards the ship. He looked around the ruins of the habitat and caught a fluttering piece of paper from a transcribed copy of Bevan Tar vs. Engineering on Water Recycling, page 198.

“Let’s see what comes next.” He said aloud as he folded the power in on itself.

 

***

Uldren blinked, only for a moment at the disorienting transmat into Wick’s cramped ship. “He said he couldn’t stop this,” he said, pulling off his helmet and pushing Stel away from the controls. “He wouldn’t come with me.”

“I can save him,” Stel folded his shell in a sigh. “But he has to be dead first.”

“I promised him he wouldn’t be alone, anyways,” Uldren said, voice flat as he swung the jumpship around. “I have no idea what a safe distance is going to…”

The words were cut off in the blinding flash of Un-Light and Un-Dark. The bow of the shockwave buffeted the little craft, and Stel was thrown into the back, bouncing off the cargo hold floor as Uldren fought the controls. The meagre shields  screamed in distress as minute fragments of the surrounding asteroids pinged off them like a hail of kinetc ammunition.

And then it was over, a glowing cloud of dust where the habitat and it’s surrounding asteroids had been. Stel shot back to the cockpit, scanning furiously for that one sign of his Guardian. The one that had led him from one side of the solar system to the other. “THERE,” he transferred the coordinates to the HUD and Uldren brought the ship closer. “He’s there.”

“It’s just dust, little light.” Uldren sounded unconvinced.

There was nothing recognisble in the dust from a distance. But Stel knew he was there. “I’ve seen ghosts do more with less.”  Uldren gave over the transmat controls and the hold was suddenly filed with dust and debris.

The prince left the auto systems on and crawled back to watch as Stel wove Light and matter together, letting letting the instinct guide him like it had when Mouse had first been born from the dead bones.

Light became bone and flesh and pale violet skin as the body remembered itself, and Stel worried, panicked that this time, he wouldn’t breathe.

Until Mouse arched, gasping as air burned into new lungs and blinked awake and confused. His eyes darted around and he made a few garbled noises, then coughed. “Stel, what the Light happened? Is this Wick’s ship? Why am I naked in _Wick’s_ ship? Where are we and wh…” his gaze landed on Uldren and Stel watched the deep violet flush burn on his cheeks. “Uh. Hello.”

Uldren let out a long breath. “You’re ok. You really are unkillable.” His shoulders shook with silent laughter.

“Wait, _wait_. Are you. Are you Uldren Sov? Prince. Your highness. I…” Mouse babbled, shooting Stel a Look. “Stel. Help me out. The last thing I remember is leaving Nessus with a data drive for Tyra Karn.”

“Mouse that was two weeks ago,” Stel clucked, then watched Uldren’s shoulders sag.

“I am. But you can just call me Uldren. It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mouse,” he said with a sad smile.

“Stel. Are we in the Reef.” Mouse asked flatly, watching as Uldren clambered back to the cockpit.

“Yes.” Stel answered in a similar monotone.

“We came to the Reef. And I don’t remember any of it.”

“Yes.”

“Damnit.”

“You saved my life,” Uldren said from up front. “That’s what you need to know, Guardian. That I owe you.”

Stel floated up to the cockpit while Mouse rooted around for clothes. “You’re not going to tell him?”

“No, and neither are you, little light,” Uldren stared at the starfield. “I’m going to take us to Vesta, then you can bring your partner home.”

“I’m sorry about the memory loss, it happens sometimes if I get blown up pretty well.” Mouse yelled from the back. “I. I was hoping. Maybe sometime I could come back?”

Uldren smiled. “Of course you can. This is _your_ home too.”

  
  


**EPILOGUE**

Wick had thrown an enormous book at him, yelling about Vance. Zavala just looked at him oddly as they strode through the Tower plaza. HIs apartment was a disaster, and there were a ton of messages on his comm.

Life continued, and he thought about what he might have forgotten in the Reef.

Until one day, as he and Stel returned, Vex goop still oozing off his suit, that the postmaster yelled after him. “GUARDIAN! I have a package for you!” She shouted, and Mouse headed back.

“Kadi, I’m not expecting anything,” he said as she handed him an engram. It was deep blue black, shifting and gleaming.

“Transmat today. Very strange. Anonymous but to Guardian Mouse, that’s you.” the frame piped.

Carefully, Mouse opened it. Inside was a terrarium with a sapling in it. The buds of a single pancicle of white flowers hung from it’s little branches and there was a note. “Low light, low gravity, I think you can take it from there- U.”

Mouse didn’t know why he felt the tears well up in his eyes, and he hugged it close. “I think I can figure it out… Uldren.”


End file.
